


Hotel California

by LadyofShalott



Category: Actor RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 07:55:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyofShalott/pseuds/LadyofShalott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve still won't talk about the time he went missing five years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hotel California

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know Steve, Christian, David, or anybody else mentioned in this story. No assumptions should be made about them based on anything written here. No harm is intended and no profit is made.

Steve won’t talk about it. It’s been five years now, and the only people who know even a tiny bit of the story are Christian and David. Christian figures Steve thought he owed them that much, because Christian and David were the ones who spent the days that Steve was missing worried sick and searching frantically for him. 

The fact that Steve doesn’t talk about it doesn’t mean that people don’t ask him about it. Christian punched out the last person who was too persistent. The fact that the person in question was Jared Padalecki made it that much more impressive. Christian never would have guessed that the pretty boy had a glass jaw. Jared hasn’t brought it up since then. Christian spent the better part of two weeks not speaking to Jensen for mentioning it to Jared in the first place.

Steve had been driving home from a solo gig, taking one of his infamous shortcuts, on a hot, dark night lit only by a huge full moon. The last time Christian spoke to him had been sometime around eleven… oh, who was Chris kidding? It had been exactly 11:47, and Steve was talking about stopping for the night at the first hotel he could find because he was so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open. Steve’s last words to Christian had been, “I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Christian had begun to worry when Steve hadn’t shown up by noon the next day. Steve wasn’t answering his phone, either, which was completely out of character, especially if Christian was the one calling. That was why Christian got the police involved. There was absolutely no trace of Steve to be found, other than his car parked beside the highway – an old stretch of blacktop that almost no one used anymore, damn Steve and his shortcuts.

The strangest thing of all was that when they tracked the GPS signal on Steve’s cell phone, it pinpointed his location at a spot less than a quarter mile from his car, which was completely deserted except for cacti and rocks. There was no phone to be found, even when Christian drove out there with them and called Steve’s phone from his own – not a sound. That was on the second day.

The cops towed Steve’s car back to headquarters, still unsure if it was to be considered a crime scene or not. Chris tied his bandanna around a cactus at the spot where Steve’s phone signal was traced so he could find it when he came back to look for Steve without the cops. He refused to give up.

That was when the phone calls started. They came to the land line and to Christian’s cell. The number on the caller ID was always Steve’s cell, but when Christian answered, all he got was static, like an electrical storm was coming through. 

Christian recruited David Boreanaz to help him look for Steve, and David was something of a comfort to him, making sure Chris ate and slept, at least as much as he could sleep in his panicked state. Amazing guy that he was, David didn’t say a word when Christian finally broke and just clung to him, crying. 

By the time Steve had been missing for five days, the police had pretty much abandoned the hope of finding him alive. Though his cell phone battery should have been long dead, the damn thing was still pinging off the charts at the same deserted location.

“I know this sounds crazy,” David had said at the time, “but try calling him. I know it didn’t work the one time you did it at first, but that was before he started calling you.”

Christian had – and in between the pops and crackles of static, he thought he could hear Steve’s voice. He tried convincing himself that he didn’t hear pain and fear in that voice, but he wasn’t that good a liar. 

“I know you’re trying, Steve,” he’d said, voice breaking. “I know. Just… just hang on, Steve. I’ll find you, I swear I will. I love you…” And Christian would have bet his life that he heard a soft “I love you” in return.

Christian went every day to the cactus with his bandanna tied around it. He took his guitar and sat on a rock and sang for hours on end, hoping that somehow Steve could hear him. If there was any news from the police, or if Steve showed up at home, he knew that David would call him. David had given up trying to drag him out of the sun after the first couple days of Christian’s vigil, but had at least insisted on sunblock and water. Sometimes he was convinced that David was his surrogate mama, but he appreciated the concern all the same.

Fourteen days after Steve went missing, as the sky turned to twilight on the night of the new moon, Steve stumbled out of thin air, grabbed Christian’s hand, jerked him to his feet, and ran.

Though he was bruised and battered, Steve wouldn’t go to the hospital. He didn’t speak for the first few days back home, and he wouldn’t let Christian out of his sight. Christian worried that Steve was in shock, but he was eating and drinking enough to keep him going, so Chris didn’t force the issue. 

When Steve finally spoke, it was the middle of the night, and he woke violently from a nightmare, screaming Christian’s name. Christian was instantly awake, arms wrapping around Steve’s trembling form, afraid that he was about to have a seizure. 

“It’s okay,” Christian whispered, trying to soothe him. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

“Christian,” Steve gasped, quieter this time, fingers wrapping around Chris’s biceps as he collapsed back onto the bed. “Oh god… I thought… I thought…”

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going anywhere.”

“I need to…I have to tell you, Christian. I have to tell somebody…it’s going to sound crazy. I know it will, but I can’t keep it to myself –“  
“Steve…we traced your cell phone to a place with nothing but a cactus or five and a bunch of rocks. There was no phone and no sign of you. I kept getting calls from your phone. I’m open to pretty much anything at this point.” Christian hugged him closer, pulling the covers up around them when a shiver went through Steve.

“I took a shortcut…I was just so tired, Christian, and I was dying to get home….but I was so sleepy… I almost went to sleep driving. That’s when I called you. I saw what looked like a light up ahead, and I hoped against everything that it was a hotel so I could just rest and then get up and finish the trip in the morning. It would’ve only taken another hour or so. As I got closer, the light got brighter, and it turned out that it was a hotel, so I pulled into the parking lot and went over to what looked like the office to see if they had any rooms available.” Steve reached for his water bottle on the nightstand and took a long drink. “There was a man in the doorway. He was tall, and had long black hair and grey eyes. The guy at the desk looked disturbingly like James Dean, but the other guy, there was something strange about him. I should have left, but I was so damn tired, Christian.”

Christian simply held Steve and stroked his hair, whispering soothingly as he paused to take another drink, and holding his hand when he started to get a little shaky again. 

Steve took a deep breath and continued. “I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke up, it was getting dark again. I tried to call you and let you know that I was still at the hotel and was going to be leaving shortly, but the connection was bad, like static. So I figured I’d go ahead and go and call you from the road. I went down to the desk and was going to pay the guy and check out. He told me that nobody ever left there…that if I could check out, sure, but there was nowhere to go. I thought he was crazy until I tried to leave. Time moves differently there…wherever there is. It felt so much longer than the two weeks I was actually gone.” He closed his eyes. “He told me you’d forgotten about me…that you’d moved on with your life and I had nothing to come back to. I saw you, though, Christian. I could see out the windows and I heard you singing. I knew you would never give up. It was our bond that kept me from giving up. Remember when we cut our hands and did the blood brothers thing? And then when David’s witch friend handfasted us? He couldn’t throw anything at me that matched the strength of that bond. My connection to you is what got me out.”

“You went missing on the full moon…you came back on the new moon… I wonder if whatever it was, the power decreases as the moon wanes.” Christian kissed him softly. “I was scared to death,” he confessed. “And I think David was ready to have me committed.” He traced one of the fading bruises on Steve’s wrist. “What did he do to you? There are so many bruises.”

“Long story short, he wanted me in his bed and I didn’t want to be there. He liked smacking me around.”

“Anybody lays a hand on you again, I will hunt them down,” Christian promised.

“Not him,” Steve replied, fear creeping into his eyes again. 

“I love you,” Christian said softly, settling himself around Steve protectively. 

“Love you, too.” Steve snuggled closer to Chris and let his eyes drift closed. That was the last time he ever told the whole story to anybody. Later, he and Christian would fill David in on parts of it, but even he wouldn’t get all the details. 

 

Five years later, Steve still has the occasional nightmare, although they’ve become more and more infrequent. He steadfastly refuses to discuss anything about the incident, although sometimes he will tell Christian about the nightmares. He no longer travels alone, and tall men with dark hair and light eyes still make him nervous, but life has regained some semblance of normalcy. He apologized to Jared when he regained consciousness after Christian punched him, but privately, Steve was thankful for Chris’s growled “When I say shut the fuck up, I mean shut the fuck up, boy,” when Jared had demanded an apology. Christian’s offer to give him a matching bruise on the other side of his jaw was just icing on the cake.


End file.
